Furious former Collingwood star Heritier Lumumba has accused Nathan Buckley and Eddie McGuire of covering up racism at Collingwood in an explosive list of claims against the club – including an allegation that the ex-coach was fine with a hardcore pornographic image being shown in a team meeting.
The bombshell accusations are contained in a document Lumumba was going to present to the Magpies as part of the club’s ‘Do Better’ report into racism.
One of the ex-star’s most startling claims is that an assistant coach showed players a pornographic photo during a team meeting and Buckley did nothing about it.
‘One of the team rules was to ‘come forward’, so he showed an image of a group of about five or more men ejaculating on a woman’s face with the words ‘come forward’ as a caption,’ Lumumba wrote.
‘Nathan Buckley was the head coach and seemed unfazed by it all.’
Ex-coach Nathan Buckley was ‘unfazed’ when assistant coaches showed a hardcore pornographic image in a team meeting and made a homophobic joke in front of players, Lumumba alleges
Lumumba claims Buckley denied he knew about the offensive ‘Chimp’ nickname despite being told about it by the ex-Magpie himself, and even told him he wasn’t walking properly as he became increasingly paranoid
Lumumba also wrote that he approached Buckley after a Magpies staffer raised concerns over a homophobic poster on a notice board, only for the then-coach to ‘clash heavily’ with him and refuse to take any action.
‘He basically ended up saying that I was the problem,’ said Lumumba, who also alleged Buckley told him he was too sensitive when he walked out of a team meeting because an assistant coach told a homophobic joke.
The 35-year-old added that Buckley talked to him about being nicknamed ‘Chimp’ during an eight-hour mediation session in 2013, then later denied he’d ever heard the slur at a press conference four years later in an effort to ‘strategically launder his reputation’.
The ex-coach became increasingly paranoid about him, ‘punished’ him for trying to uphold club values and ‘even felt compelled to tell me I was walking incorrectly’, Lumumba went on.
Buckley refused to comment on the accusations when contacted by the Herald Sun, but told SEN Radio that he has ‘another version of the truth’ that differs to Lumumba’s.
The document claims Buckley punished Lumumba for trying to uphold club values the coach refused to follow himself, and was keen to ‘strategically launder his reputation’
‘There are other versions of the truth that are a long way away from the way that he perceives it,’ Buckley said on Monday.
‘Mine is very different from what he presents, but the context becomes important and the whole idea of the process is to have open dialogue, respectful dialogue so that you can actually move forward in a positive way.
‘It seems that Heritier doesn’t really want to move forward unless, I don’t know, heads need to roll. I don’t know exactly what he’s looking for or what his requirements are to feel like he has been heard.
‘He has been apologised to – I’ve apologised to him; the club has apologised to him … for the environment that he’s been in – and not just Heritier – but the other Indigenous players that have come through.’
The document also claims former Collingwood CEO Gary Pert got ‘heavily’ drunk at a function in 2011 and talked about players’ sex lives in front of footballers and their partners.
‘The players whose partners were present were furious,’ he claimed. ‘It was a major distraction and no one, not even the coaches that knew, were prepared to confront Pert about it.’
Lumumba says while Pert eventually apologised to the players after he confronted him over the incident, it created tension between them that was ‘instrumental’ in how he was treated by the club from then on.
Former Magpies CEO Gary Pert (pictured) allegedly got heavily intoxicated and infuriated players by talking about their sex lives in front of their partners at a team function in 2011
Pert told the publication the allegation is inaccurate.
Former Collingwood president Eddie McGuire also came in for a battering in the dossier, which accuses him denying he knew about Lumumba’s disgraceful nickname when he caught up with him just before he was traded to Melbourne.
‘I told him about the ‘Chimp’ nickname and everything that had happened since the King Kong incident,’ the document states, referring to McGuire suggesting Indigenous star Adam Goodes should be used to promote a King Kong musical during a 2013 radio show.
‘Eddie has claimed he ‘never heard’ the nickname as a way of avoiding the topic, but he definitely knew about it directly from me.’
Daily Mail Australia has contacted McGuire for comment.
Eddie McGuire was also on the receiving end of claims he denied knowledge of the Chimp nickname and other racist incidents, despite being personally informed by Lumumba
Other eye-opening claims in Lumumba’s document include…
* Buckley and senior Collingwood staffers Rodney Eade and Derek Hine told him he was being traded for not acting in the club’s best interests, and because he threw McGuire ‘under the bus’
* A club director he told about his nickname and the ‘entire history’ of alleged racism at the club showed no concern, then later lied about what was said during their meeting
* Coaches did not care when he laid out his claims at his exit meeting.
Lumumba and Indigenous former teammates Leon Davis and Andrew Krakouer severed all ties with Collingwood in April and declared ‘nothing has changed’ at the club despite the ongoing Do Better report.
‘It is our firm belief that the Collingwood Football Club has no intention of acting in good faith to achieve a just outcome for past players who have experienced racism at the club,’ he wrote in a scathing social media post.
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